


Don’t Look Up, the Sky is Falling

by Maidenjedi



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:45:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3860608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Byers and Scully chase down yet another lead in the ongoing search for Mulder.  Spoilers through 'Requiem' and skews AU after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t Look Up, the Sky is Falling

**Author's Note:**

> This really had nothing to do with the recent announcement from Fox, as it happens. It was a rewrite project of mine, from a story I wrote over a decade ago.
> 
> The title is from Tori Amos, because I might have had her playing a lot while I wrote this.
> 
> Tunkhannock is a real town, and I’ve never been there, so I’ve taken considerable liberties. My apologies to the townsfolk.

Her phone rang, and she rolled over.  It was just past five in the morning, and she’d probably only been asleep for two hours, three if staring at the ceiling counted.  She stared at the clock and willed the phone to stop ringing, before finally answering it with a sigh.

“Are you downstairs?  I’ll be right there.  I need my bag.  Do you have tickets?”

She hung up and went to the closet, shrugging off the t-shirt she’d put on for bed as she walked.  She slipped on a pair of jeans, reasonably sure they were clean.  She put on the first bra that came to hand, then a silk shell and a blazer.  Ran her fingers through her hair and wondered how long it might be before she could shower.  She grabbed the overnight bag that was once stowed on top of a stack of files labeled “Witchcraft – New England – 1900-1950.”  She checked the contents and frowned, then turned to grab another bra and a fresh suit to throw in the bag, some extra shoes.  She went to the bathroom, grabbed a clean towel from the cabinet, and tossed it in the bag as well.

She brushed her teeth, and her phone rang again.  She ignored it.

How many mornings had begun like this, she thought.  A half-frantic phone call, rushing to get ready, a bleary-eyed flight or drive ahead of her.  She tried not to think that it was as futile now as it had been then.  The haste, the adrenaline, the let-down at the end that felt like the worst kind of hangover if it didn’t go their way. 

And it so rarely went their way.

She grabbed the stiletto from where it rested on a shelf by the door and she fed the fish as she walked out.

In the lobby, he stood waiting, in a long black trench coat.   His hair was freshly trimmed, his face free of a beard.   He looked tense, and worn out, not unlike how she felt.  And again the sense of déjà vu. 

But it was all wrong, wasn’t it? 

“Ready to go, Scully?”

“As ready as ever, Byers.”

-

John Byers considered himself a level-headed person, when all was said and done.  The others did as well, loathe though they were to admit it.  But it was Frohike’s idea that he go with Scully, and Langly agreed, because, he said, Byers at least looked the part of a narc, and the other two stuck out easily in a crowd.

So Byers shaved his beard, cut his hair, and he put on Mulder’s trench coat, and he went with Scully on that first trip.  Back to Bellefleur, where it rained and he had to pretend he couldn’t see her crying.  He was so overwhelmed, he couldn’t even reach out to hold her when they stood in the forest and found what they expected to find.

 _Nothing_.

Nothing then, and nothing now, four months later. 

They were looking for him.  They were searching.  And they still found nothing.

They hadn’t given up.  This was the fifth trip this month alone. 

Byers drove and caught Scully up on what they knew.  A sighting in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, possibly a history of local abductions.  He’d already asked Skinner to forward any case files that could be relevant, and Frohike had dug up a considerable amount of dirt on the locals.  The latest sighting had been reported to a MUFON group in Wilkes-Barre, less than twenty-four hours prior.

“This is the freshest information we’ve had on one of these sightings, Agent Scully.”

She nodded, fingers flipping the corner of the file folder he’d handed her when they got in the car.  She rubbed her face with her free hand.  “What else?  Who reported it?”

“A farmer, Tillman Hanks.  He’s never been involved with MUFON that we could find, but his wife was.”

“Was?”

“She went missing about ten years ago.”

“Abduction?”  Scully swallowed hard, still not used to that word rolling off her tongue so easily.

“Possibly.  She dropped off the grid, at any rate.  We couldn’t find a trace of her, beyond her MUFON connection.”

Scully went silent, and Byers assumed she dropped off to catnap before they got to the airport.  Fifteen minutes went by before she spoke again, startling him.

“Is there a chance, do you think?”

Her voice was weary, cracked, and it scared him, because she’d never questioned him like that before.

Things change, he thought.  John Fitzgerald Byers could be a leader.  Fox Mulder could go missing.  Dana Scully could grow frightened, and tired.

She could give up.

“I do,” he whispered in response.  “I have to believe, there is a chance.”

He took one hand from the steering wheel and held it out to her.  A shaky breath and half-sob later, she took it.

-

On the plane, as the sun rose, Byers dosed.  Scully, more awake and sure of herself in this familiar posture, read up on the notes the guys had put together.  It wasn’t much.  The report to MUFON was really a cursory email, the grammar amateurish and the tone hasty.  An unidentified object was seen flying over Tunkhannock’s factories early the morning before, and Tillman Hanks was aware that MUFON took a special interest.  Besides which, he was sure he’d seen it before.

Scully assumed the prior sighting had been when his wife went missing, but the file contained copies of news stories from the intervening years.  The craft, if that was what it was, had been sighted no less than eighteen times in ten years, and had become something of a running joke to the local journalists.  Tunkhannock enjoyed the notoriety of being a UFO town, to the extent that such a thing could be taken lightly.  There were a few letters to the editor, penned by a variety of people, angrily decrying the cottage industry that had popped up to sell t-shirts and mugs to the town’s trickle of accidental tourists. 

Nothing she and Mulder hadn’t seen before, truthfully.

The flight attendant came by to offer juice or coffee and a Mrs. Field’s pastry.  Scully took the coffee and took the pastry for Byers when he woke up. 

She hadn’t had much of an appetite in the last several months.  She even remembered the moment that she realized everything tasted like paste and ash. 

_I…I lost him.  I lost him._

She blew on her coffee and closed the file folder.  She sipped and decided that it was probably better scalding hot.  Mulder would drink all his coffee that way, throwing back an eight-ounce cup like this one like a shot, then asking for another.  He’d probably built up a tolerance for it, she thought.  Molten caffeine was one of his thrills.

The plane shook, and the “Fasten Seat Belts” sign came on.  Scully spilled the coffee a little on her shirt and hissed; the file folder fell to the ground.  Byers jolted awake beside her. 

The captain’s voice:  “Sorry, folks, we’re experiencing a little turbulence just now.  Keep hold of your cups and hang tight, we should be through it in just a moment.”

Scully really did a Mulder then, draining her paper cup so she wouldn’t have to hold on to it, and she grasped the armrests.  Byers whispered what were probably soothing reassurances, but he was likewise tense. 

When they finally passed through it, Scully peeled her fingers away from the hard metal and faux leather, surprised she had any feeling left.  She leaned down to pick up the folder, the contents of which had spilled out but mercifully stayed close.  She shuffled them and brought the folder back up to her lap.

Looking down, she saw an article that had been at the bottom of the pile, one she hadn’t gotten down to reading.

Dated some nine years prior, it featured a small photo of a farmhouse porch, where two men were talking.  There was no caption, just a photo credit.  The headline on the story read “F.B.I. investigates missing person case; Tillman Hanks no longer a suspect.”

And Scully elbowed Byers and pointed to the picture.  Because it featured the unmistakable profile of their own missing person.

-

The Hanks residence was less than thrilling from the outset: a small frame house, sagging at the edges, begging for release and final collapse but hanging in spite of it.  Behind the house was a barn in bad need of a good paint job, and various dead or dying trees stuck up in between.  The rest of the county and surrounding countryside gave away plainly that it was fall in Pennsylvania, with brilliant red and gold leaves covering the trees and littering the ground.  The fields surrounding the house were bare for the upcoming winter, except for a few bales of hay and a pair of stout-looking work horses.  The entire area was an anachronism, right down to the rocking chair on the front porch.

As Scully and Byers stepped out of the car, it occurred to Scully that _they_ were the anachronism on this property, in their suits and with their brand-new Ford.  It felt like a violation. 

A man sitting on the porch raised a hand as they approached, and anticipated their greeting.  "Howdy." 

Right down to his faded and patched work boots, he was more of a stereotype than an anachronism.  His dress, his accent, his work-roughened hands, all had made so many appearances in the cases she’d worked for the last decade as to be expected.  Hoped for, almost.

“Good morning.  Are you Tillman Hanks?”

He spit out a plug.  “Might be I am.  You folks feds?”

“I’m Agent Dana Scully with the F.B.I.  This is my partner.”  Byers flashed a badge, old habit now.

“Howdy, Agent Dana Scully and…I didn’t catch your name, son.”

“Fox Mulder.  Agent Fox Mulder.”

 

The first time Byers had used Mulder’s name, he’d nearly choked on the syllables, and hadn’t spoken to Scully for much of the rest of the trip.  She knew it was hard, but they’d agreed when Frohike suggested it.  It might go easier, go better, if folks heard a name they might know, he said.  Really, Scully just appreciated the appearance of normality, however elusive in reality.

But it rolled off Byers’ tongue so naturally now, after so many months.  Tillman Hanks didn’t hesitate to stick out his hand, and it was the first moment in a series of them that Scully’s stomach twisted in confusion and anticipation.

“I been waitin’ to see if you all would show up.  Guess the story’s gotten around, has it.”

Scully felt Byers glance at her sideways. 

“That depends, Mr. Hanks.  We’d like to ask you some questions about a sighting you reported.  A craft of some kind.”

"Ayuh, I seen 'em a few times, mostly in the west sky at night.  They don't dance or nothin', not like the way it says in them science fiction books.  But they're real.  Green light in the sky, blocks out the whole view.  And I'm the only one who's been seein' em."  He stood still, looking up at the clear blue morning sky, for effect, it seemed.  Getting no reply from either of his visitors, he looked back at them quickly before turning toward the house.  “You all want to sit a spell?  Offer you some water?”

They followed him up to the porch but stayed standing, Byers closer to Hanks than Scully.  They refused the drinks and Scully began with a question.

“Mr. Hanks, how long have you lived here, in Tunkhannock?”

“All my life, Agent Scully.  All sixty-two years.” 

“Yes.  Have you ever heard of local alien abductions?  Anyone in the area?”

She hated asking it.  She felt herself recoil from the idea even now, even though she had so much evidence and Mulder was missing.  She almost closed her eyes, so she could avoid yet another look from an everyday Joe Farmer like Tillman Hanks that accused her of being batshit crazy.

Instead, silence fell.  Insects buzzed pleasantly in the field behind them.  It was peaceful, for a heartbeat or two, and then Tillman Hanks sighed deeply and cursed. 

“You must be talkin’ ‘bout the Johnson boys.  Back about thirty years ago.”

They weren’t.  Scully wanted to shift the conversation, ask about the night before, a get him talking so she could convince herself this was another hoax.  Maybe ask about the wife, because Tillman Hanks still wore a ring but this was a decidedly unfeminine place.  But Tillman Hanks kept talking.

“Lenny and Matthew Johnson.  They were the first.  About nine years ago, Lenny came home.  He wouldn’t talk.  Matthew came back months after that, and he was the same.”

 

“Where are they now?” asked Byers, curiosity piqued.

Tillman shrugged.  “Four nights ago.  Out there.  Gone.  I saw it happen.”

He pointed to the south field.  It was leveled; Byers and Scully thought at the same time that they’d seen it driving it, and assumed it plowed.  Now, looking, they saw charred stalks of corn, they saw a flattened mess.

“Lemme show you.  And I’ll tell you.”

-

Byers started the car, and they said nothing.   Scully, out of reflection, but Byers, out of superstition.  If he broke the silence, he reasoned a bit madly, the spell would break and they would have nothing.

Out in the field, Tillman Hanks wove a story of abduction history so vivid he had to have lived it.  Little boys gone missing, his wife the sole witness, later driven mad and who may or may not have been taken ten years prior, before Tillman’s very eyes.

And now the latest reports, and the craft that cut a swath in Tillman’s half-heartedly-tended corn field.  Flattened stalks, burnt and still smoking in places, that last convincing exhibition.  Scully had paled, and Byers had been worried she’d faint or worse. 

It felt like they could be close.  But Byers didn’t complete the thought, he didn’t dare.

They had a lead.  For the first time in months.

Scully roused him.  “Let’s go.  We have to….we have to ask more questions.”

Byers nodded and started the car.

The spell didn’t break.

-

_"Gwen saw them out in this field that night. In those days, she didn't sleep much, and she'd love to go out on the porch and sit in that rickety old rocker."  A touch of nostalgia brightened Hanks's face briefly.  "That night was no different.  When she came in, she was dazed, near to catatonic.  I took her into our room and tried to coax it out of her, what was wrong.  She wouldn't tell. Finally I fell asleep, and I'm pretty sure she didn't.  When mornin' broke, she was standing at the window, and she wouldn't look at me at first.  Then it was like," he took a breath, ran his hand through his gray-streaked hair, "it was like a light turned on inside her.  She told me about an invisible…ship, she called it, hovering over our fields, and she said she could see it because things disappeared into it.  Birds, rabbits, just gone.  They'd wiggle, like so."_

Scully felt nauseous, even now, recalling Tillman Hanks’ words as they stood on the edge of his wrecked field.  _They’d wiggle, like so_.  He demonstrated, but she knew how they shook.  She felt it now, in her limbs and in her very core.

They were going to get a place to stay, before hunting down Matthew Johnson, the prodigal son.  It was just as well that they took a moment to breathe, she thought, to collect their thoughts.

She stared out the window as Byers drove, and she tried to see shapes in the trees, over the fields.  Was it here, was he here?  Was this the last stop, or God forbid, just another step in the journey?

She could hardly breathe.  She closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and prayed.

-

The house was white, in need of paint and a new roof.  The yard was only slightly disheveled, as if someone had gone on a little trip and would be back to trim and tidy it soon.  A cat ran across the yard, mewling. 

This, too, was painfully familiar.  A hundred cases, the same place, and it was a never-ending cycle of near-poverty and desperate attention-seeking. 

The porch was littered with newspapers, none of them more than two days old.  Scully reached out to ring the doorbell.  Heavy nickel-plated wind chimes played a forlorn tune above her head, drowning out everything else.  The door opened slightly, and for a moment she wondered if the wind had done it.

"He ain't here."

Scully put her arm down, a little surprised by the feminine voice coming from behind the door.  She looked at Byers and tapped her hip, reminding him that she would draw if necessary. 

“We’re federal agents.  We were hoping to have a word with Matthew Johnson.”  Scully held out her badge and nudged Byers to do the same.

“Is he here, Miss...."  Scully struggled for a second. 

"Patty.  He ain't here, and I don't know nothin' bout Matthew.  He's gone, they both just disappeared."

“Both?”

“Lenny.  The good for nothin’.  They’re gone.  Told you.  I don’t know shit.”

"Patty, could you open the door?  I'd like to...."

"I already told you, I don't know…”

"I'll determine that, Patty.  My partner and I just want to talk for a minute.  You can come out here.  We’re just here to help.”

An eternity passed, and the wretched cat from the yard joined them on the porch.  It stared up at Byers and paced, and Byers grimaced at the smell it gave off.  Scully resisted the urge to kick it away; she didn’t like the desperate quality to its mewling, the way it made her feel personally responsible for its hunger.

She had no patience for that feeling these days.

At last the door opened fully and a woman who might have been only forty but looked sixty, in a kind light, impatiently waved them in.

The living room was littered with magazines and knitting supplies.  Patty led Scully to the kitchen, where there was a half-empty bottle of milk on the table and a sinkful of dishes.  Other than that, it was clean and cheerful.  Only half as much could be said about Patty.

"Would you like somethin’ to drink, Agents?"

"We’re fine, Patty, thank you."

"Is Matthew in trouble?"

"No."

"Is Lenny?"  Her voice cracked as she asked.

"No."

"Why are you here?"

Scully took a deep breath and sat down across from Patty at a Formica table.  Byers stood behind her.  Scully could hear a cuckoo clock proclaiming the hour of noon, and felt the hours pull at her goodwill.

"Matthew was abducted as a child, am I right?"

Patty's face went white.  "You ain't here to make fun, are you?  Cause it happened.  It did."

Scully made no attempt to interrupt her.  Byers moved around to sit at the table next to Scully, and in a soft voice urged Patty to explain.

"Matthew was eight when it happened the first time.  Same as Lenny.  Matthew used to tell me about it. But then he didn't.  No one believed him.  Matthew told him to shut up, that they'd lock him away again.”

“Again?”

“You know.  I know you know.  And you’re here now because….”

“We’re here to find out what happened, Patty,” said Byers, and not for the first time Scully wondered that this wasn’t his naturally chosen path in life.  “We want to solve this, and bring them home.”

"'Scuse me for a second.  I have to take my vitamins."  Patty got up and rummaged through a cabinet, pulling out three bottles.  Scully got a good look at them while Patty swallowed a pill from each one.  Folic acid, calcium, and iron.

Scully blinked hard.

"Patty?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you pregnant?"

Patty swallowed more water.  "Yes.  Why?"

Scully closed her eyes briefly, not wanting to think or say what she knew she was about to.

"Is it Matthew's?"

Patty was quiet for a few minutes, putting things away and finally coming back to sit down.  She put her head in her hands, and Scully wondered if Patty had even heard her.

"Yes."  It was a small, scared voice.  Scully knew that voice. 

"Everybody is sayin’ he ran out on me, and I'm not far along, just two months.  He didn't even know."

Scully held her breath, afraid of the rest because she had already learned it so well.   

Patty sighed.  "He went missing four nights ago.  He was abducted, same as Lenny was.  I know it..  I didn't see it, but I heard old Hanks did. And it just makes sense.  Mrs. Hanks saw it take them, right there in that goddamned field.”

"And you think it was..."

"Aliens.  I know it was.”

The cat had gotten in, and all three of them stared as it began to mewl again, breaking the unnatural silence that followed Patty’s declaration. Green eyes stared back at them, daring them to continue this dark and unseemly discussion.  As if the cat knew what would come of it, as if it foresaw trouble.  It was more than a little upsetting, the hypnotizing, almost preternatural gaze of the cat set Scully's mind whirling.

But she was practical, not superstitious.  She was Scully, not Mulder.

Scully straightened herself, swallowing any kindred-feeling or sympathy as best she could.  "Patty, here's my card.  You can reach me on my cell if anything develops."

Patty took the card but shook her head.  “Ain’t nothin’ gonna <I>develop</i>, Agent Scully.  They’re gone.”

-

Byers knocked on the door that connected their rooms, a habit now that he never thought he’d cultivate.  He didn’t even know now how many trips they’d been on, how many tiny towns they’d visited, how many glasses of over-sweetened iced tea they’d consumed in the quest to just know what happened.  To find him.

Scully told him to come in, and he knew how he’d find her before the door even opened.  But while the tears were not new, the pacing, the obvious agitation was.

“Scully?”

“He was here, wasn’t he?”  she said, pointing at the map of the town spread out on the bed.  “He was here, and he knew their stories.  This isn’t a coincidence.”

The newspaper picture of Mulder and Tillman Hanks on Hanks’ porch was on top of the map, now circled in red. 

“Hanks said nothing about you not being Mulder.”

“He may not have remembered.  It was a long time ago.”

Scully scoffed.  “Bullshit.  You don’t look that much alike.”

Byers said nothing.  She was wound up, and punchy.  He held out the pizza he’d brought in. 

“Come on, Scully.  Let’s eat and we can talk this out.”

“Why didn’t he say anything?” She wasn’t letting it go.

“Maybe he was embarrassed.  Maybe he knew the name but wasn’t sure about the face, about my face, I mean.”

“Maybe.”  She sighed deeply and crossed her arms above her head. 

"Why, Byers?  Why is this happening?  Abductees are being abducted.  Women are left behind, preg…pregnant and scared.  And Mulder..."

"What about Mulder?"

"He wasn't an abductee!"  Her shout was enough to make him cringe."Byers, you know that.  I was.  He wasn't.  Only abductees are being taken this time."

"Scully....”

“No, no, you’re right.  Tillman Hanks probably doesn’t really remember Fox Mulder.  And he’s the witness, so we can’t confront him until we know more.”

Byers watched her deflate, almost as totally as she had inflamed.  Scully had been like this a lot in the past few months, especially after….well, after.  He didn’t think it any more than he would have thought that this “case” was a real lead that morning.

She sat on the bed, crushing the map, and picked up the newspaper.  She stared at it for a long time, and Byers finally just placed the pizza on a table, where it was quickly forgotten.  He edged closer to her, knowing better than to obey instinct.  But then she asked him to. 

“Please, sit.  Come here, please.”

Byers sighed, not knowing what to say, though he sat as close as he dared.

 "I'm not him.”  It hurt to say out loud, because even he needed to believe it sometimes.  Believe Mulder hadn’t gone at all, that he was here and they could both rely on him.  Scully shuddered as Byers repeated it, softer this time.  “I’m not Mulder.”

Scully pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and shook her head.  "I know...." she whispered.

Her voice broke and he clenched his fist, trying not to reach out, trying.

"He's not here.  He's out there, and we'll find him, I know we will."

He wasn’t sure anymore.  Byers felt further from their goal than ever.  And when they went home, it may be that this whole experiment was over, that the Bureau would cease to turn a blind eye, that Scully’s protection would dry up, Skinner wouldn’t be enough….

"I've failed him, haven't I?"  She whispered it so softly that Byers had to strain to hear her, even this close.  "I failed him.  I am failing him."  It became a chant, a frenzied, whispered chant. 

 He had held her during various times of grief in the past five months, but this wasn't grief.  This was desolation.  He held back, but placed a hand on hers.

"You haven't failed him."

There they sat, for as long as they could keep their eyes open, and when Scully finally fell asleep, Byers covered her as best he could and went silently into the other room.

-

Her cell phone rang, and she nearly fell from the bed as it started her awake.  She grabbed at it, not completely alert, and mumbled into it "Scully."

There was a heartbeat of silence on the other end and it was enough to give her wild hope.  She almost said his name, almost said “Mulder?” as if it could really be him and nothing had changed, no time had passed and this wasn’t another wild goose chase….

"Agent Scully?"

It was Patty.

Disappointment laced Scully's reply.  "Yes, Patty?"

"I think you should know.  Out at old Mr. Hanks’ place."

"What, Patty?" 

"Them.  Agent Scully, I think you should see."

Patty hung up.

Scully took maybe six strides to cross into Byers’ room, and he met her at the door, left open in his exhaustion and out of a half-formed desire to hear her if she awoke and needed….

“Let’s go,” she said, meeting his eyes.

He nodded, and turned to get ready.

-

The moon shone menacingly as they drove to Hanks’ farm.  Neither spoke.

Scully had called Patty back, to no avail.  They had contemplated calling the local sheriff, but Scully ultimately nixed the idea, knowing all too well that it would get them nowhere.

"Look!"  Byers' whispered awe broke the tense silence in the rented Ford as they approached the Hanks farm.

Green light, dull and eerie, glowed from the field to the south of Hanks's house, over the same deadened field.  In the center, it seemed to stop, as if an invisible craft were responsible for emitting such a light.

A chill ran up Scully's spine.

Byers parked the car on the side of the road as close to the field as he could get.  Scully was less than surprised to realize that this was more because the car died than for distance purposes.

Byers looked over at her, mouth open and eyes wide.

"This is for real," he whispered, his voice rising at the end as if to ask for confirmation.

"Yes, very real," Scully replied, fear and awe gripping her heart.

They got out of the car as quickly as possible, Scully managing to remember a flashlight, then throwing it on the ground in disgust when it didn't work.  Both of them whirled around at the sound of a man yelling.

"Get off me, get off me!  Somebody help me!"

They took off running through the field, tripping on clumps of dirt and discarded farming tools. Up ahead, Scully could see Hanks struggling with a much larger man.  A man she recognized all too well.

"Federal agent!  Let the man go!"

She fumbled in her pocket.  The stiletto.  She’d almost given it to Skinner but he’d pressed it back at her, insisting she would have more need of it, someday. 

The click resonated and the bounty hunter whirled around at the sound, dropping Hanks to the ground. 

"Scully!"  Byers yelled as she darted ahead of him, the stiletto in her hand, ready to strike.  Byers saw it first and called out her name again as a warning, grabbing for her as he ran; Hanks and the bounty hunter that had him were caught in the force field of the ship.  They were caught, ever so briefly, in thin air, shaking violently.

Then they were gone.

Scully stopped, nearly falling over.  Gone.

Rabbits and other small creatures ran in terror as the ground shook just noticeably.  All at once, the sky was filled with brilliant green light, and Scully screamed at the ship as it rose into the air, sudden loss crushing her, hope fleeing in the face of terror.

-

It was nearly dawn when they arrived at the Johnson place. 

No one was there.  In the dark, the yard was more desolate than before, and the cat was nowhere to be found.  Neither was Patty.

A note was tacked to the door, with Scully’s business card taped to it.

_“He wasn’t here.  Keep going.”_

-

The field was empty, but Scully insisted on walked out among the burnt, bent stalks, and Byers stayed at the car, watching.

In his hands, Byers held the file folder with the case notes.  Mulder had been here, back at the beginning, and had talked to Tillman Hanks.  All they had to go on was the newspaper clipping, and that was a lucky find – the original casefile, if it existed, likely went up in flames with the rest of the office a few years back, as far as Byers was concerned. 

But Tillman Hanks hadn’t called them out on their deception.  He surely knew that Byers was not Fox Mulder.

He sighed, watching Scully.  Before this trip, he’d been ready to give up.  False leads, fake sightings.  Scully had assured him, early on, that most UFO sightings were hoaxes, or wild theories about common weather phenomena.  It didn’t stop them both from feeling as though they’d never find Mulder, that everything was a hoax, that they’d imagined his fate. 

This was the first time anything felt real.  Felt plausible. 

He gripped the folder.  Mulder couldn’t tell them anything about Tunkhannock, or Tillman Hanks, or the Johnson boys, or Patty.  This wasn’t the end of the story.  He’d merely led them there, however roundabout the path.

Scully stood out in the field, face lifted to heaven, and Byers whispered a promise.

“I’ve got her back, Mulder.  I’m here.”

-

She walked resolutely back across the field, to Byers, and she looked up at him. 

“There is nothing else for us here.”

He nodded, and they climbed into the blue Ford. 

As they drove back down the road to the Hanks farm, Scully rolled down the window, and stuck her hand out.  She let it drift in the wind as they went, a childish gesture.  Byers took his eyes off the road for a split second to look at her face.

Peaceful.  But determined.

It had taken a toll, but she was ready.  His heart swelled.

-

_"Do you have a theory?”_

_“I have plenty of theories. Maybe what you can explain to me is why it's bureau policy to label these cases as ‘unexplained phenomena’ and ignore them. Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?”_

_“Logically, I would have to say no. Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements would exceed a spacecraft's capabilities th...”_

_“Conventional wisdom.”_

-

Scully walked into their office.  The poster on the wall above the desk – Mulder’s desk – hung defiantly, as it always had.  It was charred along the bottom but it had survived the fire.  It existed, in spite of _their_ best efforts to eradicate it.

She was amazed, even now, that anything had survived that fire.  The files themselves barely had, and she stared at the cabinets now, willing the right file to jump out and solve this case.  Give her all the breadcrumbs she needed, to lead her right to the proverbial witch’s cottage in which Mulder lay trapped and ready for the fire.

She wanted to look for Tunkhannock, but she knew it wasn’t there.  It wouldn’t be so simple.

She sat at the desk, and began the process of adding what she’d learned on this trip to the rest of her notes.  The Mulder file.  She was indulged, now, but the Bureau wouldn’t go for it much longer.  Not at all if they knew how many laws she broke allowing Byers to come along, to pretend to be Mulder.  Impersonating a federal agent?  That was a hefty crime.  That she barely cared spoke to the desperation she felt. 

That Skinner knew, and barely cared, well, that spoke to how they’d been led so far astray, they probably wouldn’t come back.

Her cell phone rang.

“It’s happening.  Again.”

“Where?”

“Arizona.  Mesa.  Two sightings in a week, no abductions.  Yet.”

“Meet me at the airport in an hour.”

“Already here.  See you soon.”

-

_Don't give up on this one. Trust me. You've never been closer._

 


End file.
